Quick flurry

Right, need to start posting again. Again.

First up, quick note about the Tories.

I see from the news that the Tories are laying out an "Action plan" - that is, a binding mandate. The interesting thing, I feel, about this, is it suports my contention that political democracy has undermined the Tory party - the party of natural rulers, of leadership for the sake of nobless oblige, etc. As deferential voting dies a death, so does the sheer weight of the number of working class voters bring us more and more within the realms of direct democracy.

After all, this is the party who celebrates Burke - of swinish multitude fame - who famously denied that MP's were elected on a binding mandate, instead - he claimed - they are elected to exercise their judgment and conscience on our behalf. Howard's new line is a significant departure from that.

Aside from the working class vote, we need to look at the Blairite Hegemonic strategy - that is, that Labour staying in office as long as possible is helping disintegrate the old social networks that guaranteed positions of state for the scions of the ancien regime. Add to that the change in the social composition of the Tory party - now more petit bourgeois than ever before and we can begin to see why it is in touble.

Keep an eye on this one.